40 Days and 40 Gifts Day 2

Day 1 got off to a good start. Perhaps the promise of Ash Wednesday has me inspired. One point at the Ash Wednesday service that particularly jumped out at me was this: Ash reminds us of our own mortality and the fact that we are not as important as we think we are. That's not to say that we are not important - we most certainly are very important to God, but in reality, our lives on earth and the mark we make is very small when we consider the universe and the length of time - when we see time through God's eyes. And so we are not as important as we think we are. I think this is a very important starting point in the journey towards simplicity. Simplicity is about not being so concerned about what I have and how hard I work and how much I bring home at the end of the day. The discipline of simplicity asks us to take a step back and take congiscance of the utter dependability we have on God.

That got me thinking – what we have, what we hold on to and everything about our identity that is tied to possessions (that car, those clothes etc) will die. U2 calls it “all that you can’t leave behind.”

So I was feeling inspired and choosing to give yesterday was not too difficult. Each day on my route to work I drive past a beggar who is always smiling and always friendly. And I don’t ever give him anything. So yesterday, as I was leaving home I thought about him and wondered what to give him. I opened my freezer and in there I had a loaf of bread.

This highlighted something for me – Lesson no 1: I have food in my home that I can’t possibly eat by myself in the amount of time it takes to go off and so I have to freeze it. And this guy has very little. How do we live in such a society where some have so much and others have almost nothing? That's a difficult thing to think about. If we link back to the teaching of the discipline of simplicty then we have to think about it like this: What I have is not about what I do to earn my money - it's about God's graciousness. And me simply taking what God has offered and not sharing it with others is what leads to a situation in which some have so much and others have so little. For the first time the situation struck me as ridiculous and I realised that I am partly responsible for the inequality and poverty that exists around me. So it made sense to give this guy the loaf of bread.

In the moment I was stopped at the robot I also had an opportunity to say hi to him and ask him how he was doing. Lesson no 2: Consumerism and our desire for more keeps us focused on ourselves only. Giving connects us to those around us. The inner work of simplicity asks us to shift our perspective away from ourselves and what we do and how great we are in order to seek the Kingdom of God. When we seek the Kingdom of God then our eyes are opened to the disjuncture between what God seeks and what we seek.

It seems that God has many lessons in store for me over the next 40 days. I hope that your experiences with lent will be as soul searching and growing.